Online
There is something so very strange about online friendships. It is easy to feel that we "know" someone that way. In fact that feeling can be true. Someone opens their heart, let's you inside, you do the same, you share many thoughts and feelings. It really is real in one sense. Of course you can be fooled. Someone may say what they think you want to hear and without the visual cues, the way their eyes looks, the flush that they get when lying, the sound of their voice, it is easier to be fooled. Those aren't the relationships I want to explore though. In fact, I think most of what I've shared with people online has been real in the sense that they aren't attempting to fool me. That they aren't putting on a show. I do end up feeling like they enrich my life and in some way, become part of it and me.
But here's the kicker. If they disappear somehow they are more profoundly gone than when someone who is in your life as more than just virtually. "Real life" friends can also disappear but there is always the sense that I might run into them. There is the sense that we might share overlapping friends who will tell me on occasion how they are doing even if neither of us has taken the time to reconnect. That doesn't seem to happen online so much. There is a very large empty space when someone doesn't reach out through the computer to "touch" you. They seem truly gone and there is no resolution to it.
Someday someone will write a treastie about online relationships. The internet has changed the face of social interactions. It's just weird.
But here's the kicker. If they disappear somehow they are more profoundly gone than when someone who is in your life as more than just virtually. "Real life" friends can also disappear but there is always the sense that I might run into them. There is the sense that we might share overlapping friends who will tell me on occasion how they are doing even if neither of us has taken the time to reconnect. That doesn't seem to happen online so much. There is a very large empty space when someone doesn't reach out through the computer to "touch" you. They seem truly gone and there is no resolution to it.
Someday someone will write a treastie about online relationships. The internet has changed the face of social interactions. It's just weird.
3 Comments:
I think part of what makes online stuff seem closer is that an online relationship is "all talk." There aren't times where you just, say, hang out on the couch and watch TV, commenting here and there on something. You really have to talk to people online, and it brings things closer. IMO anyway.
-Faith
Faith makes a good point. IRL, you can get to know someone by their body language, little subtle things that they do, or say, or don't do. It's a dance of sorts.
On the net, it's all about asking and answering quesitons. Revealing yourself. There's a different sort of intimacy.
Plus, people "hiding" behind a keyboard tend to be more free. They have less inhibitions. The tend to exaggerate a little more.
It's hard to feel that you truly know someone, and yet there are times that you really do.
It's a paradox.
I agree and also, the annonimity sometimes make people feel freer to talk more openly earlier. And you can't distract yourself by kissing (assuming it has some chance of being a romantic relationship).
You do learn some amazing things from people.
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